While reading this verse, a picture of someone despairing
and oppressed and rejected by his friends and ensnared in calamity begins
to pass before the eyes-- someone to whom the angel of hope is giving comfort.
(485-86)

FWP:

This verse certainly has the impeccably pious and humble
meaning that the commentators unite in giving it. But in the same simple,
non-flashy phrases there's also a wonderful and very Ghalibian 'mischievousness'
that invites the reader to go in another direction entirely.

For just look at the structure of the verse. The problem
posed is that 'creation' [;xalq] is heedless or estranged.
What the speaker really wanted was some kind of affiliation with his fellow
creatures in the world. Plainly, he didn't get it. The first half of the second
line makes that failure clear: 'you have no one'. A person in that dire situation
will surely settle for almost any kind of consolation prize.

And sure enough, that's exactly what's on offer: 'if you
have no one, then there's the Lord'. The desperate recipient of this offer
would surely do well to accept it-- but he might roll his eyes, and sigh,
and realize inwardly that it's a poor substitute for what he really wants.
What a put-down for the Lord! He's chosen because he's available, because
he's better than nothing. He's a gift horse, a freebie, a ;Ganiimat .The Creator becomes a last-ditch consolation prize,
reluctantly accepted in lieu of his own creatures.

And is the Lord even available at all, is he truly attentive?
Or is the lonely, solitary speaker just whistling in the dark? This verse
always reminds me of Kent's words in 'King Lear', 'Nothing almost sees miracles
/ But misery'. In Kent's words too is a bleakly elegant ambiguity: does 'almost'
modify the subject ('almost nothing'), or does it modify the verb ('almost
sees')? And since (almost) only 'Misery' can really (almost) see miracles,
how much can we trust such an unreliable, desperate reporter?

And to take such 'mischievousness' a step further, there's the wild (2b), which reads not to but tuu . On this reading, the speaker's inner self, or spirit, or 'life', is being reminded of its true identity-- perhaps the way avatars of deities, in Indian story tradition, sometimes have to be reminded of theirs. The spirit shouldn't feel lonesome for want of human companionship; such solitude is only to be expected, for after all, it itself is God, who is unique, and therefore solitary by definition.

Now I don't want to argue that Ghalib 'meant' this reading; authorial intention is basically undiscoverable in principle, and certainly Ghalib equipped this verse with a much more persuasive and immediately obvious primary reading. But he also framed the verse in such a way that this secondary reading appears quite clearly and unforcedly. If someone like me can notice it, how would it have been possible for him not to have noticed it? It can hardly fail to hover in the background of the verse. For another such 'hovering' case, see {95,1}; and for another example with seemingly sacrilegious possibilities, see {32,1}.